Jefferson Davis to Lowndes County, Miss., Citizens

Steamboat "Gen. Scott," November 22, 1850.

Gentlemen:--I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your very
gratifying letter of the 11, inst., in which, as friends "to the Union
and Constitution," you approve of my course in the United States Senate,
and invite me to a public dinner at such time as may be compatible with
my other engagements.

When your letter was handed to me, I was on my way to Washington
City, and the obligation to be present at the commencement of the
session of Congress (I thought,) required me to proceed without delay.
The shortness between the last and the coming session of Congress and
the exigent demand for some attention to my private affairs, permitted
me to visit but a small portion of my constituents. Had I consulted my
own gratification in the selection of the places to which I should go,
you will not fail to preceive the many inducements which Lowndes and
adjoining counties offered to me, who owe to their people such debts as
to any one it would give pride and pleasure personally to acknowledge.
Suffice it to say, that I was governed by other considerations than the
wish to visit those from whom I might expect the most flattering
reception, and now far the pleasure of meeting you, must look forward to
the ensuing summer, when I hope and expect to be with you.

For your expressions of confidence and estimation, accept assurances
of my deepest gratitude, increased, if it be possible, by the
consciousness that they are the result of your kindness, not of my
service, and are all unmerited save for the unwavering devotion I have
felt and feel to the State of Mississippi, the rights the interests, and
the honor of my constituents.

The fears which you express of alienation of the people from the yet
revered Union of our fathers, and the perversion of the Constitution
from its intent and spirit, as consequences of the late action of
Congress were the convictions of my mind when the measures to which you
refer, were under consideration in the Senate & nerved me in the
long opposition I offered to their enactment. It may be said; and from
the annals of Congress, demonstrated, that but for sectional rivalry and
distortion of the grants of the Constitution from their true purposes,
those laws would not have been enacted. The source of the measures will,
I think, be increased by their operations. The alienation of the people
and the perversion of the Constitution bear to them the double relation
of cause and effect.--Yet ingenious demagogues seek to deceive the
people of the South, by throwing the responsibility of their present
position on those who struggled most to defeat the means by which they
have been injured and are required to answer the question, will you
resist, or submit to unjust and humilating discrimination against you? A
wrong has been inflicted on the South; those who aided in the
infliction would now draw the censure they may have anticipated, by
crying aloud against all who assert your rights and claim redress for
past and security against future aggression. There could not be a more
dangerous heresy than that which concedes to the majority of Congress,
the right to use all grants as in their discretion they may choose, and
acknowledges the right of the States to interpose against their federal
agent only when the forms of the government are violated; in other
words, for a palpable violation of the letter of the Constitution. The
federal government is a creature of grants; its powers are not limited
by prohibition, but are only co-extensive with the authority conferred.
If the right of the States to interpose begins only on the palpable
infraction of the letter of the Constitution, then they have no power to
guard their reserved powers, none to confine the agent in the use of
the grant to the purpose for which it was granted, and it would be
difficult to conceive of a case such as is contemplated by the phrase,
palpable violation of the Constitution, in which the Supreme Court of
the United States would not furnish an adequate remedy. It is exactly in
the case where the rights of the States and of the people thereof are
withheld by evasion, or invaded by fraud, which deprive them of redress
by appeal to the Supreme Court as the Constitutional arbiter, that the
States have a right, which may become a duty, to interpose. Such is the
refusal to give protection to slave property in the territories held by
the federal government as the common property of the States. Such was
the admission of California as a State, in order that slaves might be
excluded from the whole territory acquired on the Pacific coast, not
merely as effectually but more effectually than could have been done by
the "Wilmot Proviso," and such was the partition of Texas. The violation
of the guarantee of the Constitution against the citizens of private
property, as presented in the bill to abolish the slave trade in the
District of Columbia, is one for which we might look to the Supreme
Court for a remedy, and I cannot believe the court would sustain a law
which declared a forfeiture of property, because the owner brings it
into the district ceded to the States for their common use, intending at
some future time and at some other place to sell that property. Yet
there are those who speak of others as "ultra," and who declare that a
violation of the letter of the Constitution justifies, if it does not
demand, a dissolution of the Union. On the other hand, we, the so-called
"ultras," contend that it is only where Constitutional remedies fail,
and after all other means have been tried in vain, that State
interposition should be invoked and the last alternative be resorted to.
It is then because we will not shut our eyes to the fact that this last
alternative may be forced upon us, that the attempt is made
fraudulently to conceal the true issue and substitute that of Union or
Disunion as one which we had presented? Is it because a self-sustaining,
sectional anti-slavery majority in violation of justice, of State
equality and the spirit of the Constitution, have denied us the
protection and tranquility the Union was designed to secure? and have
reduced us to a permanent minority in both Houses of Congress, and in
the electoral Colleges of the United States, that we are called on to
join in the triumphal song as the execrated tyrant of Rome fiddled over
the conflagration of that city?--The approval or disapproval of the
measures of the last session of Congress in relation to slave property,
and the territory acquired by the United States from Mexico, is one
question.-- The resistance or acquiescence of the South, is another and a
very different question. The first closely concerns your
Representatives, and I am willing to stand or fall as your judgement may
be made up from the Congressional record. The last is a matter for the
decision of the people, and in which I am involved only as every other
citizen of Mississippi, whose fortunes are identified with the State,
and whose ideas of allegiance require him to abide by that decision,
whatever it may be. I trust the decision will be made calmly and
deliberately upon principle, by reason, and equally uninfluenced by
headlong passion, or unmanly fear. The history of the South has been one
of steady adherence to the Constitution, of willing sacrifice to the
Union, and I doubt not in both, the present generation will emulate the
conduct of their siers. To do so, and truly to preserve the fame we have
inherited, it is necessary that we should show our attachment to
principles, not to forms; and that at whatever hazard we should maintain
the institutions and the equality which was bequeathed to us. If for
this it be necessary to assert our soverign rights even to the extent of
disunion, the responsibility of a catastrophe we will sincerely
deplore, will rest, not on our heads, but upon those who regardless of
social and political obligations, have undermined the foundation on
which our Union was erected. On which it might have securely stood when
cotemporary governments which were supported by force alone, were buried
in the waves of revolution. The consent and affection of the people was
the cement in which our government was laid: to destroy the strength of
the one is to ensure the fall of the other. We would more surely effect
this than to perpetrate wrongs upon a section and claim submission
because it was so done as to afford no remedy?

When California was admitted, I did not deny the constitutional power
of Congress to admit new States; nor the right of a people in forming a
State Constitution to determine what their domestic institutions should
be. It was contended rather that Congress should, in exercising the
conceded power, look to the purpose for which it was given; that there
should be inhabitants and territories occupied by them, ready to form a
State; a people competent to take upon themselves the responsibility and
to discharge all the obligations of a State of the Union. Or that there
should exist before any action of Congress, a State ready as such to
enter our confederacy, such as the case of Texas presented.

There was not sufficient evidence that California filled the
requirements of either supposition; the best information induced the
belief that the resources of the country were not adequate to support a
State government, and the unsettled condition of the population called
for territorial rather than State organization.--That the latter was
adopted instead of the former mode is to be ascribed to the
determination of the majority in Congress to prevent the introduction of
slavery into that country, and the prohibition of slavery contained in
the Constitution of California is propbably to be assigned to the same
cause. They had certainly full oportunity to know the sentiment of
Congress, and could not have hoped to be admitted as a State with a
Constitution which recognized and protected slave property.

Claiming then, that the grants of the Constitution should be
exercised in subordination to the purposes for which each was made, and
that the power to admit new States has been used as a means by which to
assail the interests of a section of the Union, the conclusion is, that
under the forms of the Constitution its spirit was violated by that act.
It is needless to notice the argument that being admitted the States
cannot be reduced to a territorial condition. No such proposition has
been contemplated, and the argument does not meet the issue which is the
bad conduct of the agent, the violation of the trust to the injury of a
part of those from whom the trust is held.

Another illustration of the sectional feeling which controls the
government is found in the Texas boundary act. Though the limits of
Texas were held to be so sacred as to justify a foreign war, which cost
us thousands of lives, and millions of money, when they came in conflict
with the aggrandizing wishes of the anti-slavery party, they became so
undefined and unsubstantal, that the Executive of the United States
threatened to use the military power of the government against the State
of Texas, if she attempted to take possession of territory which she
had claimed when an independent republic, to which she asserted her
title when annexed to the United States, and in defence of which our
government went to war with Mexico. It is true a proposition was made to
Texas, offering ten millions of dollars for territorial and other
claims, if she accepted a proposed boundary; but if not, was her old
boundary to be recognized? Not at all, this would have been to leave her
free to choose between selling or keeping her territory. Instead of
this, she was to make her option between receiving the money, or
encountering the military power of the federal government. Now, the
question occurs by what authority did the federal government assume to
dispute the boundary of Texas, and to purchase a part of her territory.
For specific objects the federal government may obtain territory within
the limits of a State, but this purchase from Texas was not from any of
those objects. But the resolution of annexation, the republic of Texas
conferred on the government of the United States; power to negociate
with foreign governments, in relation to any deposition about her
boundary. That is to say intrusted the question between herself and
Mexico about the limits of Texas to treaty making power of the United
States government. All who know the different composition of the two
houses of Congress, and that to ratify a treaty requires two-thirds of
the Senate, whilst to enact a law requires but a majority of the two
houses, will have no difficulty in perceiving how much the interest of a
Southern State might suffer by transfer of a grant made to the treaty
making power, from that to the legislative power of the government. It
was not then from the treaty of annexation that the Congress could
derive power to change the boundary of Texas, and otherwise that body
had no more power to deny or abridge the limits of Texas than those of
Massachusetts or Virginia. The pretence that there was conflict of
claims between New Mexico and Texas is too puerile to deserve an
argument in reply. The treaty of acquisition destroyed the existence of
the province of New Mexico as a body politic, and transferred that like
other territory required, as area to be aggregated or subdivided as the
acquiring power might select.

In this, and in the whole series of measures, there is to be traced
the ruling, directing power of hostility to the slave institutions of
the South. The Southern men were permitted to pass the fugitive slave
bill, which being a law to enforce in the north compliance with a
provision of the constitution, should, as far as was necessary, have
been tendered and sustained by Northern members. Thus it might have
borne to their constituents a respect which it has not received. Whilst
by the side of this measure stands the law, in relation to the slave
trade in the District of Columbia, offensively discriminating against a
particular species of property, placed by the Constitution on at least
an equal footing with other property; and which was equally protected by
the government, in the earliest days of the Republic; when the equality
of the States and the equal privileges of the citizens were rights
practically enjoyed. That was the day of fraternity, in
contradistinction to sectional strife; before the pseudo philanthropy of
British teachers had been entered like a wedge to rend our Union
asunder; when no American statesman would have argued for a general law,
on the ground that it was demanded by foreign or sectional sentiment;
when patrotism would have rebuked into silence the man who for such
constitutions would have offended the sensibilities, arraigned the
institutions, or invaded the property rights of any portion of our
fellow citizens.

If then, and I think it too apparent to admit of an honest doubt, the
section which has the controling power in the Government, is hostile to
that species of property on which our commercial prosperity depends,
and the disturbance of which would involve us in total ruin; and if with
the increase of power there is a growing tendency to disregard the
checks of the constitution; the time has arrived when all who love the
Union or the Constitution should unite to throw an adequate shield over
the minority; before it is driven to seek in the arms that protection
against an aggressive majority which the existing forms of our
government fail to afford.

The South needs, and has asked for nothing more than the principles
of the Constitution; the rights and immunities the compact was formed to
make stable and secure; this much all who recognize this as an Union of
equals, with powers conferred for the common benefit and general
tranquility are bound to accord, or stand convicted of a wish to change
the nature of our government, and binds us to an Union which is not the Union.
The flippent patrizan, and the satelite of power may denounce all who
claim sufficent guarantees for the constitutional rights of the South,
as impracticable. disorganizing, treasonable, disunionists.
Impracticable it is, not if the majority love the Union and the
principles from which arose more than the aggrandizement of sectional
power. Treasonable it is not, if to be true to one's country, be
patriotism, and if it be a duty to maintain, at what ever cost the
principles on which our liberty rest, the immovable foundations of truth
and justice which will remain to uphold the cause we advocate when we
and all of our's are dust.

Our Union was not formed by men who suppliant bent the knee to power;
and loved a government only as it was powerful and glorious; nor did
they leave us institutions which would be practicable in the hands of
men forgetful or careless of the principles on which they were founded.
They are the true friends of the Union who resist by all means every
invasion on the Constitution, and seek to strengthen every barrier which
is found insufficient for the use to which it was appropriated. In the
struggle for right against aggressive power, the South will not be alone
if she meet the conflict as becomes her cause. The resistance of the
colonies made Chatham eloquent in the defence, how much more will every
noble spirit be aroused among our Northern brethren, when it shall be
attempted to sustain federal usurpation by force, or conquer sovereign
States of the Union, and reduce them to territorial subserviency. Those
who can contemplate such an event may well point to the sons of a State,
thus under the ban, and say "'tis treason to love her, 'tis death to
defend."

I look forward with confidence to the action of Mississippi, and hope
it will be sustained by general action in the South; upon which hangs
another hope, that the union of the South, will produce a reaction in
the public feeling of the North, and that our constitutional union may
be preserved, a monument more lasting than brass to our revolutionary
fathers; and a temple of true liberty for posterity through countless
ages. But if this fondly cherished hope cannot be realized, the union of
the South will enable us to preserve the principles on which our
federal Union was based, and to transmit to posterity with all the
glorious memories of the Union, the principles from which its glory
sprung, and to leave the laurels gathered in common toil and danger,
unstained by the blood of civil war.

Led on from point to point, I have extended this letter to an unusual
length, and must postpone many things which it would be desirable to me
to say until we meet. Again permit me to offer my thanks for your kind
appreciation, and to assure you that your cheering voice will animate
and encourage me in the scenes I expect to encounter; that it will
always be heard above the roar of the Northern majority, and be
remembered as the reward, one of the poorest capacity may gain by
devotion to duty, and the maintenance of the rights entrusted to his
care. I am very respectfully, your friend and fellow citizen.

Jeff. Davis

From The Papers of Jefferson Davis, Volume 4, pp. 138-46. Transcribed from the Jackson Mississippian, January 3, 1851. The addressees were William Barksdale, James Blair, William H. D. Carrington, Beverly Matthews, and T[homas?]. Sharp.